If I might chime in, One thought that had occurred to me when reading, was that the Martians brought with them only what their 'intellect' deemed necessary for the job (of wiping out the simple/crude humans). Taking my cue from Wells' inspiration for the story -- the British wiping out of the Tasmanians. When the British were dealing with the Tasmanians in the 1830s (not taking any stand on whether there was a "genocide, or ethnic cleansing or just a territorial war at work), the British were not using the utmost that British techno-industry could produce. They used what was handily portable enough to work far from "home." Muskets would seem plenty of technopower for 1830s British dealing with spear-toting Aboriginies. A battery of 12 pounders, firing grape shot, would have been vastly more deadly than muskets. But, while such big guns were within the 1830 British intellect's abilities, they weren't deemed necessary enough for the bother of getting them there. Bottom line? Maybe the Martians only brought what they thought was really necessary to deal with us simple humans, not the utmost their civilizaton was capable of. Of course, there's a lovely undercurrent theme in the thought of a vastly superior intellect underestimating its victims, falling prey rather than victorious, due to a bit of ego on their part. -- cheers

This is how we all justify it, because we want the story to work, so we allow our imaginations to fill in the spaces. But the gulf between Tasmanian technolagy and British technolagy at the time spanned only a short time compared to the millions of years between British and Martian.

This is how we all justify it, because we want the story to work, so we allow our imaginations to fill in the spaces. But the gulf between Tasmanian technolagy and British technolagy at the time spanned only a short time compared to the millions of years between British and Martian.

Ah, but was it really so vast a difference? I'm sure to the Tasmanians, the British seemed at least many thousands of years advanced. That was the cool analogy Wells worked out. When a foe is unstoppably advanced, it certainly -feels- like they're unattainably advanced. Heck, looking at the changed earth (technology) just 20 years after Wells' story, I bet even the narrator would be astonished. After all, Victorian progress had been pretty slow and steady. Not a huge leap overall from 1800 to 1850 (then add steam ships) and pretty predicatable from 1850 to 1890. Rifing making a big weapon step forward, but still, cannons were cannons, etc.

Perhaps the Martians scrutinizing us as they were, could see that the industrial revolution was starting to kick into high gear, and looking back at their own timeline, thought, "Jeez, if we don't invade these guys pretty darn soon, they'll start being too much for our 'away' teams to conquer easily. Quick, fire up those cylanders! Stock the holds with juicy bipeds!" maybe? cheers

I've not read 'The Star', so I can't comment, but I'm sure I've seen somewhere that the title object in another of Wells' short stories, 'The Crystal Egg', is revealed to be of Martian origin.Unfortunately I've not read 'The Crystal Egg' either, so I can't confirm.Regarding the idea of supposedly superior nations & their armies underestimating an apparently inferior opponent, other more recent examples include the Vietnam war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ongoing Iraq conflict.As the old saying goes, 'Those who do not learn from their mistakes...'

as i may have said earlier, the pc game asserts (almost certianly correctly) that the Martians have had no need to wage war on anyone for thousands upon thousands of years, so their weaponry wouldnt be as advanced as the rest of their civilisation

but what about the fact that they are basically us a few million years from now. just think what our technolagy will be like in a thousand years never mind a million. think of the weapons that we will be able to whip up then. whether we've been to war in a while or not, i'm pretty sure the power at our disposal will be beyond heatrays and poisonous smoke and armoured transport. it will be born of science that is beyond our current understanding of physics.

as i may have said earlier, the pc game asserts (almost certianly correctly) that the Martians have had no need to wage war on anyone for thousands upon thousands of years, so their weaponry wouldnt be as advanced as the rest of their civilisation

But in Christopher Priest's 'the space machine' the Martians are at war with each other, for the last of the water on Mars, they use the Red Weed to draw the water out of the ground

Yes you're right the Crystal Egg is a communication device or rather a spying device the martians use to see how advanced we are.

Thanks Crow.

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but what about the fact that they are basically us a few million years from now. just think what our technolagy will be like in a thousand years never mind a million. think of the weapons that we will be able to whip up then. whether we've been to war in a while or not, i'm pretty sure the power at our disposal will be beyond heatrays and poisonous smoke and armoured transport. it will be born of science that is beyond our current understanding of physics.

Loz, you're assuming that scientific development will continue uninterupted. History says that won't be the case.Consider: various civilizations - the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs and Mayans, etc - all made important and significant scientific discoveries, and built huge cities and empires. However, in each and every case their empires fell, their civilizations faded into history, and all their technologies were lost. Mankind has a habit of retreating back into barbarism and the Dark Ages.Therefore, I seriously doubt that most of the technology we take for granted and use everyday will still be around in 500 - 1000 years time. Our current civilization will eventually end, and our distant descendents will revert back to living in mudhuts and caves. History demands it.

But in Christopher Priest's 'the space machine' the Martians are at war with each other, for the last of the water on Mars, they use the Red Weed to draw the water out of the ground

maybe but that book cannot be taken as 100% part of the story. Neither can the game either of course. The only stuff that is 100% part of the story is HG Wells' book and Wells gives no reason to suppose the Martians had been at war with each other (not even a passing question as to wether they would have fought themselves in fact).

Thanks Crow.Loz, you're assuming that scientific development will continue uninterupted. History says that won't be the case.Consider: various civilizations - the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs and Mayans, etc - all made important and significant scientific discoveries, and built huge cities and empires. However, in each and every case their empires fell, their civilizations faded into history, and all their technologies were lost. Mankind has a habit of retreating back into barbarism and the Dark Ages.Therefore, I seriously doubt that most of the technology we take for granted and use everyday will still be around in 500 - 1000 years time. Our current civilization will eventually end, and our distant descendents will revert back to living in mudhuts and caves. History demands it.

True enough, however The Martians were clearly meant to have developed and evolved without these interuptions. They have evolved into giant brains, with lots of fingers or tenticals. This evolution could not had taken place if they bhad kept being reduced to barbarism. So I'm on about potential. Potentialy if we have a millions of years of uninterupted progress as the Martains must have to evolve in such a way then we as they should be about as close as an animal can be to the Gods.

In Wells's time some thinkers thought that humans would evolve into something not unlike the Martians, that machines and the like will take over muscles and that that the physical side of us would deteriorate and the brain and hands would evolve. This is doubtful now of course. Athletesism is bigger than ever. But who knows in the long run.

So I agree with what you say about past empires and the current one but The Martians can't have been held back for a long time to go through such a drastic evolution.

And this current empire of man is greater than all that has gone before, so with each step backwards we later go two steps forward.

So why did the Cylindar Canon stop firing? <_< I reckon there was a coup on Mars. We may never know.

do you think a resource depleted civilisation with very few trained military personal (after all theres no need for the martians to have them, as they have nobody to wage war on) just has infinate cylinders, fuel for the cannon, tripods and other apparatus and the Martians to operate it all? they build a lot on Earth where resources are more available so ten cylinders was probably all that they, having planned what would be needed to conquer at least Britain at first, deemed appropriate to send

I think its all about resources and the lack of. Fireing an invasion fleet from a big gun was cheaper and more resourcful than building spaceships.<br /><br />Of course it all has a lot to do with the fact that Wells was a man of his time as I've said before. <br />Look at First Men On The Moon. They float up there with Caverite is it? No space suits. Vegetation springing up and dieing down everyday. That would be a harder story to bring to life faithfully today, but it would still work, becuase you tell it as a Victorian tayle. <br /><br />So its fun to take his limitations as a prophisiser of future technolagy and create scientific reasons for his descriptions. The Tripods themselves are about alienness and not about logical physics. Unstable and impractical, but terrifying and this is part of his genius. <br />

I would imagine also that any invasion and the resources it would involve would need to be timed to take advantage of the earth and mars being as close together as possible and maybe because of that, they only had time to fire a certain amount of cylinders.

well what i mean is, Wells often goes off to speculate about certain things about the Martians, and i think that if he imagined them waging war on each other he would have given some form of voice to it. <br /><br />The artillaryman's comment doesnt conclusively prove anything, I would say that the character is trying to support his belief that humanity as a civilisation is destroyed, and was justifying the ceasing of the firing of the cylinders in a context that ultimately meant despair for humanity because the Martians could after all, repair the gun

He did mention it briefly at the end of his short story 'The Star' The Martians astronomers see how vulnerable we are and start planning

Fenris wrote:

I've not read 'The Star', so I can't comment, but I'm sure I've seen somewhere that the title object in another of Wells' short stories, 'The Crystal Egg', is revealed to be of Martian origin.Unfortunately I've not read 'The Crystal Egg' either, so I can't confirm.

Hi guys,This is my first post on the forum although I've been "lurking" for months now.Thanks for the tip re "The Star" and "The Crystal Egg" - I did some googling, and thought you might like links to these stories!http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/etexts/y3819.htm
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/to ... ision=div1 The Crystal Egg by H G Wells

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